I still have a copy of the Yorkshire Post of 13 December 1995 after an operation against illegal plying for hire. Big placards and loads of private hire drivers demonstrating against me outside the Town Hall. The nastiest placard didn’t get published. I also have a letter from the Hackney Carriage Association expressing appreciation over enforcement of the legislation.

They can protest until the cows come home, these new regualtions will be enforced. Why has the requ
irement that all cars be the same colour been dropped. This would have meant there would be less chance of individuals

Forum etiquette is you don’t use text speak. It is silly and it is mostly incomprehensible.
It is OK when you are talking to your silly mates on Twitter but it is not acceptable on any forum that I’m aware of or on forums I’m a member of.

Following the 16 years of child abuse in Rotherham and other towns and cities the days of the abusers are numbered the technology is there to stop it for the safety of passengers and the safety of taxi drivers who themselves have been mugged, robbed and assaulted CCTV will ensure this is drastically reduced. CCTV in taxis will be law soon throughout the country passengers will feel safe and if the taxi doesn’t have the CCTV customers can boycott them. If those cameras had been in place years ago there would never have been 1400 child abuse cases that have given Rotherham a bad name the commissioners have got it right.

Parents of children they feel are being abused are using very small button hole cameras very hard to detect that film the abusers that will stand up in a court of law and the abusers are being prosecuted the technology is there we are filmed for parking,speeding and shoplifting offences and now it is being used everywhere for abuse hidden cameras are used by staff and relatives in care homes, hospitals and council run authorities and even in our homes and those films are getting prosecutions every day of the week on February this year the Care Quality Commission now show relatives who suspect abuse how to film it. They held a survey and over 96% support their action. Without camera evidence rarely do the abusers get caught but these days are gone and if you run a taxi with CCTV your safer your customers are safer and if you do not implement them in your taxi you could have your licence withdrawn. Many customers will not use a taxi that doesn’t have CCTV for there safety. This will shortly be law throughout the country and Rotherham and all the other towns and cities will have to comply.

TAXI DRIVERS ARE NOT AGAINST CCTV,THEY ARE AGIANST COST MEASURE BY CCTV,NEW CARS,3 TEST A YEAR ,BADGE FEES ETC.

The council has not taken on board any of the suggestions made by the taxi industry during the consultation process. We appreciate and understand the need to improve the taxi service and image of the industry, but it needs to be a balanced approach not heavy-handed and without justification. The aim is to ensure that customers are safely transported from A to B. The measures they have proposed to implement on the back of the jay report do not improve the taxi trade in terms of safeguarding the vulnerable people and ensuring the public who use the taxi are receiving the best and safe service.
The measures that the council is implementing is totally unjustifiable especially in this time of economic downturn. How is placing a burden on the trade to spend on new cars and having the age limit of 5years old for a taxi going to improve the safety of the public? This council used to have 3 annual checks to ensure that the vehicle used was safe for the public. This was later changed to 2 checks per year why? The cost to the trade has not been reduced! How is this improving the safety and the confidence to the public? Does it make sense to have fewer checks on cars therefore allowing the bad apples to drive in cars that may not be up to standard?
The idea of having some knowledge and qualification in regards the taxi industry is welcome by us but they should not impose this on drivers that have been doing the job for many years without a problem. Instead would it not be better to have regular refresher courses say on an annual basis, all could be done in-house by the council as they do for people who do work on school runs etc. This would at least be better for the drivers than having a qualification once in the lifetime of doing the job.
Why change the current identification of private hire vehicle. The current system is working, the public can tell the difference between a PHV and a Taxi. Having permanent signs/fixtures on the vehicle do not help the individual owner who when not working as a PHV can be identified as a potential target by thieves and open to abuse by idiots.
The majority of the measures the council is implementing have been discussed over the previous years with the trade and have been rejected as they did not make any improvement to the safety of the trade. One of the main problems that the council does not seem to do is enforcement. We want the best for our trade as it provides us with a living, we don’t want bad people working in the industry giving it a bad name, to ensure that standards are kept and drivers are following the correct rules in servicing the public there needs to be a greater amount of enforcement. None of these new measures have taken into account any form of enforcement, all they seem to have done is looking at what past proposal they looked at over the years and bully the trade into following measures which are not addressing the real problem and concerns of the industry. It seems they need to “look “ to be addressing the issue, but they are far from making any changes that will improve the industry. After been ignored by the council, who are making decision which affect us, we feel that only option left is to have some demonstration’s to highlight to them that we are the ones who need to be involved with this as well.

What well worded bullshit Anon. Not one mention of CCTV in taxis, do we take it you agree with this then? There is an absolute need for there to be a clear distinction between a Hackney Carriage and a Private Hire vehicle which there is clearly not in Rotherham. A maximum of 5 years of age for a vehicle used almost 24 hours a day is NOT unreasonable as it is travelling approx. 10 time the distance any private car will travel.
Like the rest of the tax paying public in Rotherham, I say to you, “Stop trying to make excuses for a despicable set of crimes perpetrated by Rotherham taxi drivers over the past 10 or so years and for once in your life, come clean.” Oh sorry, it’s against your religion.

The answer is simple, all those taxi drivers who were seen demonstrating outside the Town Hall obviously have something to hide therefore their taxi licences must be revoked immediately for the safety of our children and all customers.
It is time our councils stood up to these corrupt and disgusting people. Every time some regulation is made to control them, they demonstrate or if something happens they don’t like they demonstrate. Why? because they are corrupt, bent and criminally responsible for this disgusting CSE.
At last we have someone in our council with the guts to stand up to them and if they don’t like it, they know exactly what they can do. Leave. Either leave Rotherham or better still leave the country and don’t come back!!

The council has not taken on board any of the suggestions made by the taxi industry during the consultation process. We appreciate and understand the need to improve the taxi service and image of the industry, but it needs to be a balanced approach not heavy-handed and without justification…….. I’d say 1400 kids raped by these taxi drivers is all the justification needed